OLA Fest features documentary on Orlando homeless, films worldwide

Fabian Morales will be a guest at this year's OLA Fest. (OLA Fest )

February 8, 2013|By Carolina Salazar, Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer

A documentary on homelessness in Central Florida by a Colombian-born Full Sail student will be shown as part of the ninth annual Orlando Latin American Film & Heritage Festival, known as OLA Fest, which kicked off Friday, Feb. 8, with a community-oriented event in Apopka.

"Take Me Home," produced and directed by Fabián Morales, follows the lives of homeless people in Orlando for a period of two years.

"It shows stories of people you never suspected would end living on the streets," said Morales, 34.

Morales said that several of the people featured in the documentary, and who are still living on the streets, will accompany him to the screening of his documentary.

"Take Me Home" will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at Premiere Cinemas 14 at Fashion Square mall on East Colonial Drive in Orlando. Tickets are $10, with half of the proceeds going to Second Harvest Food Bank.

This is the first year the festival is scheduled last two weekends, with screenings Feb. 9-10 and 15-17. Each movie, except "Take Me Home," costs $5.

As part of an agreement with Global Film Initiative, a nonprofit organization that supports movie production, OLA Fest will feature movies from 10 countries, such as Perú, Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil.

Festivalgoers will have the chance to watch older films they may never have seen.

"This is the first year that we have films from a larger number of countries," said OLA Fest founder Nelson Betancourt, a native of Colombia. "In the past we have presented more recent films but this time we have this deal and these are the movies that are in their catalog."

"Shift Change" documents the growing movement of worker-owned cooperatives, highlighting in particular the work of the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain and increased interest in such organizations in the United States.